Thursday, January 15, 2009

This is better than most recent comics. At least we get to see a crazy situation happening, instead of being told about it later. It seems like a variation on an old idea -I'm reminded of a no doubt fictional story of a group of Mensa members at a restaurant, attempting to think of a clever way swap the salt with the pepper, as had each accidentally been placed in the other's shaker, only to have the waitress, upon hearing their solution, simply unscrew both caps and switch those. Anyway it's still a bit fun if only for the clever ways he's trying to get the roommate's attention and the look on her face if he had succeeded. Of course, none of that is the point of the comic, the point is "ha ha he is stupid he loves computers so much that he didn't think of ringing the bell."

This is weird: look at panel 1, then look at panel 7. What happened to the backpack?

Also: really? there was nothing to throw at the window? Are you in some kind of sterile metallic world where there are no rocks or twigs anywhere? Or for that matter, since it's pretty cold right now here, snow?

And here's another thing I don't get: the title of this comic is "I'm an Idiot." So if you read the title first (and why wouldn't you, given that it's in big type at the top of the page) you are thinking, in the back of your mind, "this person is an idiot...I wonder why" and so the surprise, the "oh ha ha there was an obvious solution all along" is not as much of a surprise as it would have been had the title been something more mundane, like "Locked Out."

It's these moments that just make me go "Why, Randall?" Why would you telegraph the joke in the title and take away the surprising and funny(ish) element of the punchline?

Anyway, that's all I got, this is one of those comics that do show at least a spark of promise.

Did you all like the subtle little "hey guys...i got me a roommate who is a girl" thing there? CLEVER

Speaking of living in a sterile world, do these characters live in a house filled with nothing but computers? The guy is supposed to be returning from somewhere with a backpack, but he, his roommate, and the living room are centered around computers. It's a wonder the blonde girl didn't whip out her iPhone and force a satellite to project a hologram of their coordinates to the roommate. For that matter, what is she doing wandering outside? There's an online conversation occurring somewhere without her!

And then! These super-tech-savvy characters know how to break into computers like nobody's business, but their own computers are open to intruders? If he can break into the Mac Mini, then why not break into the roommate's laptop (I guess they're of the proud "I DON'T OWN A TV" clan).

Ok that's enough hatred by implication for now. Gotta keep the reserves up for 531, it's being lowered like a sacrificial cow into our blog cage...

While we're talking about things appearing/disappearing from the comic, the doorbell appears in the last frame of the comic, though it wasn't in the other frames. It may have been drawn that way to emphasize the point that he should have used the doorbell, but to the casual observer it seems like magic or something.

M7S: Whoops! I learned something new today, and can't wait for it to awkwardly enter conversation months from now...

"And then he said to use SSH or whatever--""It allows remote access through a secure protocol.""How do you know that? Do you use SSH?""No...you see, I was mad at this webcomic, and looked up a computer reference I'd dismissed..."

Girl: Um...ok, well I learned something new today. To be fair, there is no way I would know that. Also: Why is it that of all the people here, I'm the only one who doesn't actually have some personal connection to Randy Munroe?

Jay, your second comic is a great point. There was much more fun you could do there, I hadn't thought of that. It could have been the best panel of the strip. Oh well.

Lint: Yeah the floating-above-shit drawings are wacky, I don't get it.

Thomas: To be fair, most people who have done anything with Linux or CS in general have used SSH. It's hardly obscure knowledge, though it's also not common knowledge. It's not hard to imagine Randall mistaking it for such, though.

Carl: Rob and Thomas have spoiled me and now I expect my xkcdsucks on the day of the comic :(

Hahah whenever the floating thing comes up I always am reminded of your "fuck you at least my head is attached to my body" bit. Heheheh. Sorry, Carl.

I actually also noticed that his roomie was a girl. And I don't think I'm super biased and I tend to be hugely superficial. Also the thing protruding from the wall is the doorknob, I think, because there is no doorbell in that one panel that shows the apartment's facade.

I did not read the title until after, as well, so I think it acted more as alt-text than anything for me... I think that might have been a better alt-text anyway. And I agree that "Locked Out" would be a better title. Curse Randall and his sucky decisions! PUT YOUR BACKPACK BACK WHERE YOU DREW IT

Another thing: Carl have you noticed that your 16th digg keeps on disappearing and reappearing? The number always hovers on 15 or 16... and I am considering getting a Digg account to stop this business.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.